The first time I got to know Lina Bo Bardi’s work was in an exhibition in the Pavillon de l’Arsenal last year in Paris. It was a small exhibit, with a lot of videos and a scenography a little cliché that exploited the fact that Bo Bardi is one of Brazil’s most famous contemporary architects. Each section had sounds from the jungle, traditional toys, palm tree leaves and other objects that were supposed to make you feel as though you were in Brazil. In spite of that, I found Bo Bardi’s life and buildings to be quite impressive.

In Munich I saw a second exhibition on the same architect in the local architecture museum, the Architekturmuseum der TU München, ran by the city’s Technical University. The museum’s collection of drawings, models and fragments has its origins in the end of the 19th century and it worked mainly a pedagogical support for the classes. The collection gets the official name “architecture museum” in 1977, but without having a permanent place to present its exhibitions. So until 2002 the museum organizes temporary exhibitions which are presented in different museums or exhibition rooms across the city.

A few days ago I was in Munich where I had to read some books and visit one of the first architecture galleries that was created in the 1980s in Germany. I was very excited to go because I’ve been reading about this city since many months, but definitely nothing compares to being physically present in the city.

It all started because a few months ago a friend on Facebook posted an article on the best books on happiness. I was very interested in the subject because things weren’t going well; I was always sad or in a bad mood, even though things around me were relatively well.

Naturally, since I am doing my Ph.D. I’m very receptive to everything that entails scientific research. That is why I started reading “Authentic happiness” from the psychologist Martin Seligman. In this book, Seligman explains that for many years psychology and psychiatry have tried to alleviate mental illnesses, but so far they haven’t tried to make people happier. That is why he and many of his colleagues have created the “positive psychology”, the study of happiness and of one essential characteristic to attain it, optimism.